On Monday morning, Donna and I took a ride through the Modoc National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Midget-San. Donna told me she heard a pack of coyotes yapping in the NWR the night before. I heard geese and cranes in the evening, but was sound asleep before the coyotes got excitable.
We were hoping to see some wildlife in the NWR, but all we saw were birds, mostly waterfowl – geese, cranes and ducks. Also a few hawks which I couldn’t get a good enough look at to identify.
We ended up driving into Alturas to grab a few groceries and had lunch at El Agave Azul – we were told it was the best Mexican food in town. We both thought it was average at best, but we enjoyed the lunch.
Later that afternoon, a tractor-trailer rig pulled into the lot at Desert Rose Casino and parked parallel to us on the driver’s side about 40 feet away. He had an empty flat-bed trailer. I noticed he left his engine idling – I assumed he left it on to run air conditioning. It was about 90 degrees outside in the sun. Later I saw him come out of the casino with a woman and a bag of what appeared to be take-out food. They got in the truck, but it remained parked and idling.
We had an uneventful evening as I watched more of the US Open tennis on TV and went to bed before Donna. In the morning, Donna told me she had a horrible night. The noise of the idling truck in the lot kept her up most of the night. The truck sat there idling for about 14 hours. Since he was hauling an empty flat-bed trailer, he couldn’t have been needing to run a refrigeration unit or anything. I think he idled the big diesel to keep his cab air conditioner running!
We packed up and pulled out Tuesday morning. Our route took us south on US395 through mostly open range land and some tiny towns like Madeline and Termo with populations under 100 people. At Standish, we turned on Standish Buntingville Road which is also known as the Reno cut-off. It’s a shortcut bypassing Susanville.
This took us around Honey Lake and we climbed to the Nevada border near Cold Springs. We took the first Nevada exit and found Bordertown Casino RV Park where we had a reservation for a 70-foot paved pull-through site. We were checked in quickly and found the park to be clean and well-maintained. The 70-foot site length is a bit of an exaggeration though – our 65-foot overall length only left a foot or so to spare and stay within the marked site. The power pedestal, water and sewer were ideally located and we were in business in no time.
Donna was excited by the park wifi – that was big news as far as she was concerned. They had an excellent signal with high speed and allowed streaming video. Donna took advantage and watched three or four episodes of The Americans on Amazon Prime. We had a cocktail in the casino and ate in their restaurant. They had a taco Tuesday special – $1 tacos. I ordered three and they were quite good. Donna went for an oriental chicken salad.
Wednesday was mostly a bust. We had warnings of thunderstorms in the area and had showers off and on throughout the day. I watched hours of US Open tennis. Without anything exciting to talk about, I’ll just insert the obligatory sunset behind our coach shot.
We pulled out this morning around 10:30am. I made a stop at their fuel pump and topped up with fuel. They had straight diesel #2 – no biodiesel content. We had a short drive to Carson City. We made a stop at Walmart to get water and Donna stocked up the refrigerator and pantry. I walked over to Round Table Pizza and ordered a take-out pepperoni, mushroom, onion and green pepper pizza. I haven’t had a Round Table pizza in a long time and they are one of my favorites. Donna put the groceries away and we had lunch in the coach before moving on.
We pulled into the Gold Dust West Casino RV Park around 1pm – our third casino in a row. I had called ahead to inquire about dropping the trailer. I had a hard time making sense of what the gal was telling me on the phone. We found a large, empty lot that was part of the casino parking near the RV park. I unloaded the Midget and dropped the trailer there. We drove through the RV park in MIdget-San to reconnoiter, then I went to the registration desk at the casino hotel to check us in. They told me I couldn’t leave the trailer where I dropped it. I had to take it to another smaller lot on the other side of the casino. They couldn’t tell me why I couldn’t park it where I did, they just said “it wasn’t allowed.”
There was no sense in arguing so we drove the Midget to our site then walked back to the coach to hook up the trailer again. I dropped it in the designated area – about a 1/4 mile away from the RV park and out of our view. They assured me the lot was under video surveillance 24/7.
Alpine Coaches are filling this small RV park. We have 24 registered members of the Alpine Coach Association here to tour the eastern Sierras. Over the next 13 nights we will caravan to three different parks and take tours of the many sights this area has to offer. I’m not usually one to go on organized sight-seeing excursions, but when we came up this way last spring, we missed most of the attractions due to weather. With an organized group with pre-made plans and reservations, we’ll be sure to check it all out now.
After setting up this afternoon, a thundershower is passing through. The forecast calls for the rain to thin out after 5pm but gusty winds could continue through the night. Tomorrow should be sunny with temperatures in the upper 80s. We’ll be going to Virginia City for a train ride!